Rock Climbing

My mad french friend has returned from Europe so last night we met up again for a climb.
Today my fingers feel like an arthritic old mans.
It always amazes me how tenuously small the little features on a rock wall can be yet we are still able to get purchase and climb steep and run out cliff faces, in climbing parlance steep = overhung, top photo. I'm going to try and get some of the slide film I took in Thailand 20 years ago scanned digitally. Hopefully the picks will be as good to laugh at at these of my skinny arsed youth. In the case of the last three photos here you can see my skinny arse in all its out of focus harness warped glory as the picks were taken when I climbed the last pitch of the three sisters naked.

The older I get the better I was

Last night I caught up with an old climbing buddy and good friend - Ashwin. Funnily enough we went climbing. I first met him circa 1990 in the climbing club at uni. Bach then he was a pretentious young cocksure wog studying law with grand designs as to what he was going to do with his life. He's now a jet setting $10K a day legal consultant with a veritable model wife, can climb some of the hardest climbs in the world and has an increadible sharp mind and wit, matched only by his cojones ferreas.

His climbing got so good I could never keep up and he was on-sighting 28 (French 7c, US 5.12C) where as I was a much more mediocre 23, 24 (6C, 5.11 b-c) on a good day. We spent many a winters day climbing through the Blue Mountains, and around Nowra. We holidayed together - climbing in Thailand and trained twice a week in the climbing gyms.

Last night was no different - he climbed many of the harder climbs in the gym, I managed a dozen of the harder intermediate routes, and had a good perve at my hairdresser - spunky little 19 year old. Caught up with Guy and james, also from the early 90's climbing era, and took ourselves off to a fab Malay restaurant in Lane Cove for dinner.

The reminiscent conversations about what Ash and I got up to in Thailand are probably better left to another post.

Dyno

Climbing in the gym with Laurent last night some of the younger blokes were a crack. tryin' to pull-off a massive dyno. I'm a bit old and my tendons a bit too damaged to try.

My hands are a bit sore

It probably has something to do with going indoor climbing last night. about 20 years ago I used to climb a few times a week and trained seriously in the gym. I'd head up to the blue mountains with friends most weekends and spent most of my holidays looking for exciting vertical challenges. My life revolved around climbing, uni and dance clubs, but mostly climbing.
Over the years my strength to weight ratio has lost ground to my girth to weight ratio. My flexibility has been eroded by arthritis and probably most damaging - I no longer care how I look in my climbing tights.
Needless to say my lifestyle has changed over the years, I no longer keep in contact with my climbing buddies and no longer self identify as 'a climber'.
Last night for the first time in too many years I went climbing. I sucked. Sean and Andrew were very nice about it, but I sucked.
We are hoping to make this a regular occurrence, so the only way is up.